


Changeling

by Rook_Rabble



Category: Danish Folklore - Fandom
Genre: (and a broken arm), Abduction, Changelings, Child Abuse, Trolls, child deformities, crazy neighbor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25058119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rook_Rabble/pseuds/Rook_Rabble
Summary: Barter, barter merchant. A pretty for an ugly, no sir, a bad barter. A baby for a changeling, no freaking way sir.But really we should ask the mothers.





	1. Lost and returned

**Author's Note:**

> Underline_______________my personal comments, sorry:)

**The Changeling**

A changeling or an ''oaf'' was a child that had been replaced by the ''trolls'' (in Denmark, we called them ''mountain folks'') Once a child was born, it could happen that the mountain people came and took the newborn child and put one of their own cubs in it's place, this belief was prevalent throughout Scandinavia. In Denmark it was thought that it was the ''little people'' who lived underhill, in Sweden it was the forest spirit Huldra or Skogsrå.  


**'' That thing has never been my child! ''**  
The changeling was an ugly creature with an unusually large head. It had small and scaly eyes. Although the changeling was greedy and had an immense appetite, but only the head would grow. Its body was often shapeless with deformed hands and feet. It was rarely taught to walk, and it could produce some incomprehensible sounds that sounded almost like the grunts. It happened that the changeling got cramps where it squeaked and cried terribly. ''Yes, a severely disabled child was no good, they could not work and were more a burden to the family ''.

**Opposites attract**  
The reason why the people of the mountains could find a way to replace a human child with one of their own was because they were very eager to make contact with humans. The robbed children may have become invisible and sent back to steal food and drink from humans.

  
**'' Let the little children come to me ''**  
There are several suggestions for avoiding replacements. One of the safest was getting the baby baptized as soon as possible. The mountain people could not gain power over Christian children. You could also secure the child by putting some steel in the cradle. If you tied a silver cross around the neck of the child or put a hymn book down in the bed, the mountain people could not rob the child either. The monk Martin Luther had his idea of changeling. In the town of Dessau, he saw a twelve-year-old boy doing nothing but ''eat and defecate''. Luther advised that the boy be drowned, "For mentally weak children are changeling, born of women who had had intercourse with the Devil, and Those children should be drowned, not by pity, but because the devil's changeling has replaced the soul"

''That is why I was never baptized in church. The baptismal font suddenly didn't look so friendly''

**The reality is rarely as good as the fairytale**  
If, on the other hand, you had a changeling in the house, the best way to get your child back is to abuse and torment the changeling as much as possible. When it screamed loudly, the mountain troll or Huldra would immediately rush to her child and give back the right child. But it was not always the case that the return had a happy ending. The right child had often become odd or crazy with the people of the mountains, and often it died shortly after the return.

**''The devil is not needed,**  
 **people are just as evil as can be''**  
The people of the last century's public information gradually removed the belief that deformed or retarded children were probably not human but offspring of evil creatures, which could therefore be neglected, abused or left behind. Often, the children did not live very long, but the family's fear that the child would nevertheless reach a normal life age and burden the family well beyond their resources - made it more obvious to accept a drastic action - kill it.

''Here is the great plan, we are gonna put hell..........out of business''


	2. The forgot advice/The strange sausage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mothers of the year  
> Never lend babies, that's why I have so many friends. LOL

**The forgot advice**

  
When a baby was born, one had to make sure that the blanket was stapled with a peg and not with a ribbon or a pin. If you did, the people of the mountain could not take the child. There was once a wife who had not followed this advice. One morning, therefore, she found an ugly, squinting cub in the cradle instead of her own pretty little baby. The desperate and deeply unhappy mother went over to the neighbor woman to find out what to do with the displaced child. The neighbor woman gave her advice that she should make a proper rice. Afterwards she would take the changeling with her to the dunghill and whip it with all her might. The wife did what her neighbor woman had advised her to do. As soon as she began to whip, a little mountain woman rushing with the wife's own child in her apron. She threw the baby in the dunghill and said excitedly, "There you have your child, you wracked woman." Then she took her own child and disappeared with it into the forest. ''well here's my advice: don't go to **the neighbor!!!!!** ''

**The strange sausage**

  
There was once a wife near Harre parish on Salling, who had a child who had been aborted. This cub was an ugly one. The wife could not keep it clean and it would only lie in bed and soil itself. When the wife went out, the changeling got out of bed and ate all the sausage it could find. The wife was pretty tired of the changeling, and complained of her distress to the neighbor's wife. She was then advised to take a small piglet and cook it whole, with skin and brushes. Once cooked, she would place it on the table with a scarf over it. She then had to tell the changeling that she was walking to town, and that it was not allowed to eat the sausage. Afterwards she had to stand outside the door so she could hear what the changeling was saying. As soon as the wife was out the door, the changeling jumped out of bed and to the table. Here it lifted the scarf. Then it exclaimed: '' What are you? What are you? You have a snout, you have eyes, you have legs, you have a tail. Now I have lived since there was a forest where Harre Church now stands, but never in my days have I seen such a sausage! '' The wife, who heard it all, was so astonished and went over to the neighbor's wife to tell what she had heard. She was told to light up in the oven until it was red hot. Then she took the changeling in it's ears and shaked it and said, ''I've had trouble with you long enough. Now you have to burn''. Never before had she done this before a mountain troll came with her real child. The mountain troll threw the baby away, and it broke one arm. Then she snapped her own and left, saying, ''Here is your child. I've handled it better than you've with mine". And it was true enough, the baby both fat and happy". "Yes, even with a broken arm, yes, it's always boring when it comes to intrusting each other with our belongings, but she did got rid of the Changeling ''  



End file.
